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At 9:10 PM -0400 4/13/04, Rich Salz wrote:
>Parts of X.fws concern me -- I am thinking of the round-trip from
>XML for something like <error-rate>.500</error-rate> going to a
>local number, out via ASN.1/DER as an IEEE float, and back. Along
>the way it's all too likely to end up as .5, which will break my
>digital signature -- and quite rightly, since trailing zero's are
>semantically significant.
Or worse yet, sending out <error-rate>.400</error-rate> and having it
come back as <error-rate>.400000001</error-rate>, especially if .4
happens to be the boundary between an acceptable and unacceptable
error rate.
As a practical matter, data will be mistyped. I see this in databases
to this day. I still remember the student directory back in college
that gave everyone in New Jersey a four digit zip code (because New
Jersey zips start with 0). Text is more robust against such a human
error and misdesign than binary formats are.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA
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